A crooked car dealer jailed for nine years and 10 months for multiple frauds and theft has been ordered to pay back £85,784 from the proceeds of his crimes.

But the Court of General Gaol Delivery heard that Glenn Barry Cooper was in no position to pay, having fled the Isle of Man penniless just before he was about to be arrested.

He was given seven days to pay the £85,784 or face serving an extra 21 months in jail.

Cooper, 55, appeared for the proceeds of crime hearing via video screen from Isle of Man Prison.

A day and a half had originally been set aside for a contested hearing but in the even the matter was settled beforehand.

Prosecutor James Robinson said the defendant had benefited from his crimes to the tune of £862,479 but it had now been agreed the amount available was £85,784.

This related to a series of payments the defendant had made to a jewellery company and to a sum of around £5,000 paid to a bank account in the UK, which the prosecution said were ‘tainted gifts’.

But defence advocated David Reynolds told the court that his client accepted that he would have ‘huge difficulties’ in being able to pay.

He said: ‘When he left the island just before the police were about to arrest him, he left penniless. He had been working in a kitchen in the Lake District washing dishes to pay the rent. The money all went trying to prop the business up.’

Cooper was jailed for nine years and 10 months in January last year for a series of offences described by Deemster Graeme Cook as a being ‘outrageous’ in scale.

He had fled the Isle of Man but was arrested in the Lake District at the end of 2022 and later pleaded guilty to 21 offences of fraud and theft.

Cooper had falsely applied for personal loans, failed to hand over car sale cash, and took out stocking loans on cars he sold on or never owned.

Some of his victims only found out about the outstanding loans when they tried to sell their vehicle on themselves.

His crimes were committed over a 22-month period when he had been trading with his now defunct company GBM Automotive Limited and had been living at Majestic Close in Onchan.

Cooper’s crimes came to light when a loan firm was contacted by a company in the UK who was in possession of car that was subject to one of the defendant’s fraudulent loans.

Among the victims of Cooper’s cruel scams was the mum of a child with mobility issues who had asked him to sell her car.

However, after giving him the keys in September 2019, she never heard from him again, a situation which sent her into a financial ‘downward spiral’.

Deemster Cook made a proceeds of crime order for the sum of £85,784 and gave Cooper seven days to pay, with a 21 months’ custody in default to run concurrently.